Re: Text Editor

At the moment, in order to ascertain what is happening with bidi in  
text documents, I use the following techniques :-

1.  I use the SIL Unicode BMP fallback font <http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=UnicodeBMPFallbackFont 
 > I switch the text to this font so that I can see exactly what and  
where the unicode bidi control characters are. So in this mode I am  
seeing the "bidi display mode"

2. In order to see the "logical display mode"  I view the raw data in  
Unix using hexdump -C

So I can get all the information I need but it is all a bit mind  
numbing working through hex and ascii codes :-)

So that it why I raised the idea of the text editor with a "bidi on/ 
off toggle"

André

On 11 Nov 2008, at 17:27, Najib Tounsi wrote:

>
> Martin Duerst wrote:
>> At 23:19 08/11/09, Andre Schappo wrote:
>>
>>> I am new to this list so apologies if I initially go over old  
>>> ground.
>>>
>>> I have just been reading <http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-bidi-controls  
>>> > and have experimented with both unicode and html methods of   
>>> controlling directionality.
>>>
>>> What I would really like is a Text Editor that I can toggle  
>>> between  "bidi display mode" and "logical display mode"
>>>
>>> By "logical display mode" I mean that the editor shows the raw   
>>> underlying characters ie the order they were typed in
>>>
>>> By "bidi display mode" I mean displaying the final form after   
>>> application of the direction directives/"character properties".
>>>
>>> Anyone know of such a Text Editor ?? I am using Leopard on an  
>>> Apple Mac.
>>>
>>> I have already tried several editors and also gone down to the  
>>> Unix  level (pico & vi) but none provide both display modes.
>>>
>>
>> Your "logical display mode" would mean that e.g. Arabic and Hebrew
>> are written left-to-right, which would simply be unreadable.
> It depends on what you want to do (and for whom?). Sometime it is   
> easier to fix small portions of bidi-text (e.g. add/delete  
> punctuations) by looking directly at the logical order. There are  
> other use cases. That's why I share Andre Schappo's concern. I  
> remember I once asked if a composer like Mozilla/NVU could offer  
> another mode (in addition to HTML / Wysiwyg modes)  to "toggle  
> between 'bidi display mode' and 'logical display mode'", at least in  
> HTML-source mode.
> The implication of such "logical display mode" is, for Arabic, that  
> the letters shouldn't join (which could contribute to the  
> unreadability you mention).
>> So that
>> would be my explanation for why such an editor doesn't exist.
>> It may be possible to find an editor that essentially does
>> "logical display" by simply using an editor that doesn't do
>> any bidi processing. But even editors that don't do any bidi
>> processing these days may end up with some kind of poor bidi
>> display, because of the way they use an underlying (OS or
>> window system) rendering engine.
>>
>
> Yes, that is also an obstacle.
>
> Regards, Najib
>> For a somewhat different approach on how to edit bidi html
>> and xml, please have a look at
>> http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp/2005/pub/IUC28-bidi/ and
>> http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp/2008/pub/IUC32-bidi/.
>> Comments and questions welcome.
>>
>> Regards,   Martin.
>>
>>
>>
>> #-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
>> #-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 11 November 2008 18:00:40 UTC